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I have been making up my own spice blend for taco night for years now.  For the longest time I was only using it for regular old American Tex Mex taco night.  You know the drill: hard shell or soft flour tortilla, ground meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato, salsa & sour cream.  Simple, easy and delicious. 

Last year for Father’s Day we decided that instead of cooking up our go-to meal of ribs and BBQ style food, we’d have a taco night.  My nephew was the one who asked, “But will there be shredded beef?” To be honest, I’d never even considered it before when whipping up a meal for my family.  In the past, it seemed silly to spend hours cooking up something that I could otherwise make in what seemed like minutes.  Well, since this was an opportunity to do something new and different, I took the chance and WOW…it paid off!!

This meat is so delicious and so easy to assemble.  All you really need is time.  You can make this ahead of time and pop back in a pot the day of with enough liquid to prevent drying out the meat and voila! Dinner is served!!  My family went crazy for this and now when we have a big family taco night, this is my go-to dish!

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Mexican Inspired Shredded Beef

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  • Author: AMY
  • Prep Time: 5 – 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 6 – 8 hours
  • Total Time: 6 – 8 hours
  • Category: beef, tacos
  • Method: slow cooker
  • Cuisine: mexican inspired

Ingredients

Scale
  • 3 pounds flank steak, at room temperature and patted dry with paper towels.  Season on both sides with salt and pepper, to taste.
  • 2 small onions, thinly sliced
  • 5 – 6 cloves garlic, smashed
  • Spice Blend:
    • 1 tablespoon chili powder (I use ancho)
    • 1 teaspoon sweet smoked paprika
    • 1 tablespoon cumin
    • 1 tablespoon coriander
    • 1 tablespoon Mexican oregano (smashed with fingers)
    • 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
    • 1 teaspoon salt
    • ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
    • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 14.5 ounce can fire roasted diced tomatoes
  • 1 cup beef broth
  • Serve with: Flour / corn tortillas, pickled onions, chopped radishes, cilantro

Instructions

Add all ingredients to your slow cooker in the order they’re listed.  Cover with tight fitting lid and cook on HIGH 6 hours or LOW for 8.  In my experience, 4 hours isn’t enough time.

When the meat is fork tender, remove it from the slow cooker.  Place the meat in a dish and begin shredding it with two forks.  Once it’s shredded, place it back in the slow cooker to keep warm until you’re ready to serve.  Alternatively, you can just spoon the broth over the meat until you achieve your desired amount of liquid to meat ratio.  Either way is fine and either way will give you delicious results. 

Now you’re ready to serve it up.  I recommend using tongs to grab the shredded meat out.  Although you want to allow the meat to sit in the juice to prevent drying out, you don’t necessarily want all that juice making your tortilla soggy.  Use the tongs to add a generous amount of meat to your tortilla and then move on to adding some additional toppings or eat it as is. 

I recommend keeping the toppings somewhat simple.  Add a few ingredients that highlight the meat while still allowing it to be the star.  I serve it with pickled onions, chopped radishes and cilantro leaves.  It gives it an awesome balance of flavor and texture, which I personally enjoy!

Notes

*You can make this a few days ahead.  Just follow all the steps but instead of serving it, allow it to cool completely before placing it in the fridge.